Syclone0044
06-26-2005, 01:30 PM
It's tough for me to come up with a term to describe what I mean, since pure drag cars have "taken" all the obvious titles like "True Street", "Real Street", (ironic since all the competitive cars in those scenes are actually the furthest from being truly streetable).
My biggest interest is in what I will call ultra high performance "Complete Street" cars where the goal is to have as absolutely fast of acceleration as possible, while sacrificing the bare MINIMUM in streetability. Meaning - giving up little or nothing over the factory stock functionality.
What does this mean? It means a car that could be your daily driver. But that is such a cliche' I will take it further and say it's a car that your girlfriend could borrow as HER daily driver. The car must be able to go ANYWHERE including the toughest conditions you encounter (outside of winter). Stop and go gridlock traffic, road construction, OUT OF STATE, etc. Anywhere your REAL daily driver car can go, this car should go too. So performing on 93 octane gasoline is a requirement, considering it's the only widely available fuel at any location.
Certainly A/C would be highly desireable; especially considering the last 7 days of humid heat. This is supposed to be a car that you WANT to drive. So it would have to have nice seats, full interior, and not be a pain in the ass to operate. 3 speed transmissions would be out of the question unless you had maybe 3.08 gears or lower (?). It wouldn't be realistic to daily drive a car that gets 10mpg in terms of cost, and it also wouldn't be realistic in distance unless the gas tank was 20 gallons or larger. So fuel mileage is a concern too but obviously as power goes up, fuel consumption increases. I would guess a big block would be out of the question since I haven't encountered any fast big blocks with good MPG.
The big difference between a Complete Street car and a typical streetable drag car would be the lack of compromises. When you have a typical streetable drag car, it's very easy and attractive to remove a bunch of accessories to make it easier to work on, remove a bunch of weight to make it going faster without having to increase the engine's Specific Output (HP per Liter), and making the drivetrain more reliable. (The lighter the car, the longer parts last). All these things are Give and Take, you Give Up your streetability and comfort and the quality/function of the vehicle, but you Take a benefit in terms of faster ET/MPH and less $$ spent on drivetrain breakage. Obviously a Complete Street car would need a very reliable drivetrain for peace of mind. (Worrying whether or not you'll get home is NOT fun.)
I have seen two examples of this type of car in the area. Believe it or not, the first example is Dennis's LT1 95 Trans Am. (Funny to think that his car is an LT1 with the recent LT1 humor.) I will be honest - when I first heard about his car, I thought Dennis was kind of arrogant or into bragging about his car and making "excuses" when he said that he built the car for himself and not for ultimate drag ET. But only recently did I finally "GET" his car (R.I.P.). The deal with his car is this - it's a COMPLETELY streetable car that you would actually WANT to drive around all the time. He put an aftermarket stereo in it, a stroker motor, a supercharger, and it ran on PURE 93 octane and made 630HP to the wheels and over 600FT-LB torque to boot. The kicker is that the damn thing still passed emissions! (By design!) Now that is a serious, dedicated effort. (I wouldn't even go that far.) The engine was designed to make power at ANY RPM and that makes a HUGE difference in the Fun Factor of driving a street car. Being able to feel surging acceleration whenever you hit the gas is WAY more fun than having to "prepare" the car by getting the RPM in the powerband first. His car was heavier than stock and many people witnessed him mercilessly beating the shlt out of it, even letting other people drive it (a point mentioned near the top.) Whether or not people care for Dennis's personality, I think credit is due for someone who had a very specific, uncommon, difficult goal in mind, and then accepted no compromises and did the work and spent the time to achieve that goal.
I think it's much easier , cheaper, and quicker to just avoid these things and do the standard drag racing stuff to make a car faster, there's no question a car with these types of requirements will be significantly slower than a purpose built drag car. But I personally have a lot more FUN being able to drive a vehicle all the time and really pound the piss out of it, take people for rides, let others drive it once in a while, etc. I think TRUE daily driver duty is probably out of the question for most people, because if you have a car this cool, it's not worth it to park it at work and have people ding your doors, collect bird shlt, have the interior get faded etc. But it is a possibility depending on your route to work and the location.
Another example (apologies if I've mentioned this car before) is Jim Moran's 96 LT1 Camaro SS from Speed Inc. Jim's car is incredible and his craftsmanship is mind-blowing. He built the whole thing himself (like Dennis) and accepted almost no streetability compromises. The car is a twin turbo 357ci LT1 and it makes peak power around 5800 RPM. It's got big brakes, full size front tires, AC and all the standard equipment. He built the car to drive the shlt out of and have mega power (It made 847RWHP and 847RWTQ at 24 PSI). He has driven it to Arizona and back. He got accused of being a Dyno Queen so he put on a set of slicks and skinnies to prove it had the power it was reported to have. Here's a video http://www.ls1speed.com/movies/Jim_977.WMV It also went 9.68 at a lower MPH (146). I've seen this car and the quality is first-class and my jaw pretty much drops. In fact now that he's drag raced it , his next event is to take it to Road America :stare where it sounds like I might be getting a ride :wooo :headbang The fact that he can even consider running 9s, going to Arizona, and taking it to Road America is testament to the non-compromises of this car. The only drawbacks I know are that it's RWD so it has massive traction issues without slicks, and it runs on 110 Leaded gas so it wouldnt be nearly as fast on 93 octane. However I beleive he either did (or is going to) install a dual fuel tank system so it runs 93 octane and engages 110 at WOT.
For me, a car simply doesn't feel FAST unless it HAS TRACTION. If you used a G-force meter to measure acceleration it would reveal which car "feels" faster. Therefore I don't see any way around the idea, that the FASTEST Complete Street car would have to be All wheel drive. You can run treaded radial tires and still cruise in the rain at 60mph. Getting caught in the rain is Unavoidable if you drive far enough away from home.
I'm trying to aim for something like this with my truck, it has cost me a lot of agony and wasted money already trying to keep everything I want. It was a pain to work on from the factory and some added equipment makes it no easier. While I certainly wouldn't consider my Syclone "ultra high performance" yet, I do have a lot of fun with it. I am willing to run slower in order to drive the truck more frequently and without limitations. For high boost I have an alcohol injection system so I run 93 octane 100% of the time and ANY gas station or Wal Mart has bottles of HEET to refill the alcohol tank. So I can (and have) drive it across the country and race it and drive it home. I took it to Kansas City (10 hour drive) to race in 2003 and 2004 (the pickup truck bed came in handy for carrying luggage :rolf)
But my truck is somewhat inconsequential to this post. I'm wondering if anyone else out there is interested in, or building something along these lines? I understand this is completely what floats MY boat and everyone likes something a little bit different, but you can get the general idea what I mean about a "Complete Street" car and a typical streetable drag car.
My biggest interest is in what I will call ultra high performance "Complete Street" cars where the goal is to have as absolutely fast of acceleration as possible, while sacrificing the bare MINIMUM in streetability. Meaning - giving up little or nothing over the factory stock functionality.
What does this mean? It means a car that could be your daily driver. But that is such a cliche' I will take it further and say it's a car that your girlfriend could borrow as HER daily driver. The car must be able to go ANYWHERE including the toughest conditions you encounter (outside of winter). Stop and go gridlock traffic, road construction, OUT OF STATE, etc. Anywhere your REAL daily driver car can go, this car should go too. So performing on 93 octane gasoline is a requirement, considering it's the only widely available fuel at any location.
Certainly A/C would be highly desireable; especially considering the last 7 days of humid heat. This is supposed to be a car that you WANT to drive. So it would have to have nice seats, full interior, and not be a pain in the ass to operate. 3 speed transmissions would be out of the question unless you had maybe 3.08 gears or lower (?). It wouldn't be realistic to daily drive a car that gets 10mpg in terms of cost, and it also wouldn't be realistic in distance unless the gas tank was 20 gallons or larger. So fuel mileage is a concern too but obviously as power goes up, fuel consumption increases. I would guess a big block would be out of the question since I haven't encountered any fast big blocks with good MPG.
The big difference between a Complete Street car and a typical streetable drag car would be the lack of compromises. When you have a typical streetable drag car, it's very easy and attractive to remove a bunch of accessories to make it easier to work on, remove a bunch of weight to make it going faster without having to increase the engine's Specific Output (HP per Liter), and making the drivetrain more reliable. (The lighter the car, the longer parts last). All these things are Give and Take, you Give Up your streetability and comfort and the quality/function of the vehicle, but you Take a benefit in terms of faster ET/MPH and less $$ spent on drivetrain breakage. Obviously a Complete Street car would need a very reliable drivetrain for peace of mind. (Worrying whether or not you'll get home is NOT fun.)
I have seen two examples of this type of car in the area. Believe it or not, the first example is Dennis's LT1 95 Trans Am. (Funny to think that his car is an LT1 with the recent LT1 humor.) I will be honest - when I first heard about his car, I thought Dennis was kind of arrogant or into bragging about his car and making "excuses" when he said that he built the car for himself and not for ultimate drag ET. But only recently did I finally "GET" his car (R.I.P.). The deal with his car is this - it's a COMPLETELY streetable car that you would actually WANT to drive around all the time. He put an aftermarket stereo in it, a stroker motor, a supercharger, and it ran on PURE 93 octane and made 630HP to the wheels and over 600FT-LB torque to boot. The kicker is that the damn thing still passed emissions! (By design!) Now that is a serious, dedicated effort. (I wouldn't even go that far.) The engine was designed to make power at ANY RPM and that makes a HUGE difference in the Fun Factor of driving a street car. Being able to feel surging acceleration whenever you hit the gas is WAY more fun than having to "prepare" the car by getting the RPM in the powerband first. His car was heavier than stock and many people witnessed him mercilessly beating the shlt out of it, even letting other people drive it (a point mentioned near the top.) Whether or not people care for Dennis's personality, I think credit is due for someone who had a very specific, uncommon, difficult goal in mind, and then accepted no compromises and did the work and spent the time to achieve that goal.
I think it's much easier , cheaper, and quicker to just avoid these things and do the standard drag racing stuff to make a car faster, there's no question a car with these types of requirements will be significantly slower than a purpose built drag car. But I personally have a lot more FUN being able to drive a vehicle all the time and really pound the piss out of it, take people for rides, let others drive it once in a while, etc. I think TRUE daily driver duty is probably out of the question for most people, because if you have a car this cool, it's not worth it to park it at work and have people ding your doors, collect bird shlt, have the interior get faded etc. But it is a possibility depending on your route to work and the location.
Another example (apologies if I've mentioned this car before) is Jim Moran's 96 LT1 Camaro SS from Speed Inc. Jim's car is incredible and his craftsmanship is mind-blowing. He built the whole thing himself (like Dennis) and accepted almost no streetability compromises. The car is a twin turbo 357ci LT1 and it makes peak power around 5800 RPM. It's got big brakes, full size front tires, AC and all the standard equipment. He built the car to drive the shlt out of and have mega power (It made 847RWHP and 847RWTQ at 24 PSI). He has driven it to Arizona and back. He got accused of being a Dyno Queen so he put on a set of slicks and skinnies to prove it had the power it was reported to have. Here's a video http://www.ls1speed.com/movies/Jim_977.WMV It also went 9.68 at a lower MPH (146). I've seen this car and the quality is first-class and my jaw pretty much drops. In fact now that he's drag raced it , his next event is to take it to Road America :stare where it sounds like I might be getting a ride :wooo :headbang The fact that he can even consider running 9s, going to Arizona, and taking it to Road America is testament to the non-compromises of this car. The only drawbacks I know are that it's RWD so it has massive traction issues without slicks, and it runs on 110 Leaded gas so it wouldnt be nearly as fast on 93 octane. However I beleive he either did (or is going to) install a dual fuel tank system so it runs 93 octane and engages 110 at WOT.
For me, a car simply doesn't feel FAST unless it HAS TRACTION. If you used a G-force meter to measure acceleration it would reveal which car "feels" faster. Therefore I don't see any way around the idea, that the FASTEST Complete Street car would have to be All wheel drive. You can run treaded radial tires and still cruise in the rain at 60mph. Getting caught in the rain is Unavoidable if you drive far enough away from home.
I'm trying to aim for something like this with my truck, it has cost me a lot of agony and wasted money already trying to keep everything I want. It was a pain to work on from the factory and some added equipment makes it no easier. While I certainly wouldn't consider my Syclone "ultra high performance" yet, I do have a lot of fun with it. I am willing to run slower in order to drive the truck more frequently and without limitations. For high boost I have an alcohol injection system so I run 93 octane 100% of the time and ANY gas station or Wal Mart has bottles of HEET to refill the alcohol tank. So I can (and have) drive it across the country and race it and drive it home. I took it to Kansas City (10 hour drive) to race in 2003 and 2004 (the pickup truck bed came in handy for carrying luggage :rolf)
But my truck is somewhat inconsequential to this post. I'm wondering if anyone else out there is interested in, or building something along these lines? I understand this is completely what floats MY boat and everyone likes something a little bit different, but you can get the general idea what I mean about a "Complete Street" car and a typical streetable drag car.